My father runs a business, one day many years ago in his shop he needed help moving a bunch of material. I explained it would be a lot faster to do it a different way, and he commented that would be the lazy way to do it. It wasn’t the first time I’d run into this thinking, though it has stuck with me ever since.
I explained this isn’t about exerting less effort, but that for the same effort we get a heck of a lot more done. I guess that’s when I first realized that management consulting can be a good thing.
Of course, 30 years later, I know management consultants are often frauds that have no idea what they are talking about or doing. They make business benefits by slowing wage growth and by essentially forcing smaller groups of people to do more work by laying off their coworkers. Not the efficiency I had in mind.
https://www.economist.com/business/2022/04/09/how-mba-wieldi...
The protestant work ethic is a powerful tool, but people need to know that it is a religious value now woven into society. Not to avoid doing productive things, because I think it can provide the most amazing successes and a wonderful life, but to be aware that it is horribly abused in America by business management. “Idle hands are the devil’s hands.” And it drives all sorts of compulsion.
None of this is new, but if I could go back in time, I would find Chuck Palahniuk, and explain to him that the problem in our society isn’t the banks, but the big consulting firms. Oh that would be a much more satisfying ending to Fight Club.